Fair virgin, to redeem her dear,
Brings Arthur to the fight;
Who slays the giant, wounds the beast,
And strips Duessa quite.
Ay me, how many perils do enfold
The righteous man, to make him daily fall,
Were not that heavenly grace doth him uphold,
And stedfast Truth acquit him out of all!
Her love is firm, her care continual,
So oft as he, through his own foolish pride
Or weakness is to sinful bands made thrall:
Else should this Redcross knight in bands have died, For whose deliverance she this prince doth thither guide.
They sadly travell'd thus, until they came,
Nigh to a castle builded strong and high:
Then cried the dwarf, "Lo! yonder is the same,
In which my lord, my liege, doth luckless lie,
Thrall to that giants hateful tyranny :
Therefore, dear sir, your mighty powers assay."
The noble knight alighted by and by
From lofty steed, and bade the lady stay,
To see what end of fight should him befal that day.
So with his squire, th' admirer of his might,
He marched forth towards that castle wall;
Whose gates he found fast shut, nor living wight
To ward the same, nor answer comers' call.
Then took the squire an horn of bugle small,
Which hung adown his side in twisted gold
And tassels gay: wide wonders over all
Of that same horn's great virtues weren told
Which had approved been in uses manifold.
Was never wight that heard that shrilling sound,
But trembling fear did feel in every vein:
Three miles it might be easy heard around,
And echoes three answer'd itself again:
No false enchantment, nor deceitful train,
Might once abide the terror of that blast,
But presently was void, and wholly vain:
No gate so strong, no lock so firm and fast,
But with that piercing noise flew open quite, or brast.*
The same before the giant's gate he blew,
That all the castle quaked from the ground,
And
every door of free-will open flew.
The giant's self dismayed with that sound,
Where he with his Duessa dalliance found,
In haste came rushing forth from inner bower,
With staring countenance stern, as one astound,
And staggering steps, to weet what sudden stowre
Had wrought that horror strange, and dar'd his dreaded
And after him the proud Duessa came,
High mounted on her many-headed beast;
And every head with fiery tongue did flame,
And every head was crowned on his crest,
And bloody mouthed with late cruel feast.
That when the knight beheld, his mighty shield
Upon his manly arm he soon addrest,
And at him fiercely flew, with courage fill'd,
And eager greediness through every member thrill'd.
Therewith the giant buckled him to fight,
Inflam'd with scornful wrath and high disdain,
And lifting up his dreadful club on hight,
All armed with ragged snubs and knotty grain,.
Him thought at first encounter to have slain.
But wise and wary was that noble peer;
And, lightly leaping from so monstrous main,
Did fair avoid the violence him near;
It booted nought to think such thunderbolts to bear.
Nor shame he thought to shun so hideous might:
The idle stroke, enforcing furious way,
Missing the mark of his misaimed sight,
Did fall to ground, and with his heavy sway
So deeply dinted in the driven clay,
That three yards deep a furrow up did throw:
The sad earth, wounded with so sore assay,
Did groan full grievous underneath the blow;
And, trembling with strange fear, did like an earthquake
As when almighty Jove, in wrathful mood,
To wreak the guilt of mortal sins is bent,
Hurls forth his thund'ring dart with deadly food,
Enroll'd in flames, and smouldʼring dreariment,
Through riven clouds and molten firmament;
The fierce threeforked engine making way,
Both lofty towers and highest trees hath rent,
And all that might his angry passage stay;
And, shooting in the earth, casts up a mount of clay.
His boistrous club, so buried in the ground,
He could not rearen up again so light,
But that the knight him at advantage found;
And, whiles he strove his cumbred club to quite
Out of the earth, with blade all burning bright
He smote off his left arm, which like a block
Did fall to ground depriv'd of native might;
Large streams of blood out of the trunked stock
Forth gushed, like fresh-water stream from riven rock.
Dismayed with so desperate deadly wound,
And eke impatient of unwonted pain,
He loudly bray'd with beastly yelling sound,
That all the fields rebellowed again:
As great a noise as when in Cymbrian plain,
An herd of bulls, whom kindly rage doth sting,
Doe for the milky mothers' want complain,
And fill the fields with troublous bellowing:
The neighbor woods around with hollow murmur ring.
That when his dear Duessa heard, and saw
The evil stound that danger'd her estate,
Unto his aid she hastily did draw
Her dreadful beast; who, swoln with blood of late,
Came ramping forth with proud presumptuous gate,
And threatened all his heads like flaming brands.
But him the squire made quickly to retreat,
Encountering fierce with single sword in hand;
And twixt him and his lord did like a bulwark stand.
The proud Duessa, full of wrathful spite
And fierce disdain, to be affronted so,
Enforc'd her purple beast with all her might,
That stop out of the way to overthrow,
Scorning the let* of so unequal foe:
But nathëmore would that courageous swain
To her yield passage, gainst his lord to go;
But with outrageous strokes did him restrain,
And with his body barr'd the way atwixt them twain.
Then took the angry witch her golden.cup,
Which still she bore, replete with magic arts;
Death and despair did many thereof sup,
And secret poison through their inner parts;
Th' eternal bale of heavy wounded hearts:
Which, after charms and some enchantments said,
She lightly sprinkled on his weaker parts:
Therewith his sturdy courage soon was quay'd,t
And all his senses were with sudden dread dismay'd.
* Let, hindrance, or opposition.
t Quay'd, quelled.
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